WERE you ever in a theatre, right in the middle of a play, on the
very verge of an act that you were really quite curious about, and
just as the curtain started to go up it was suddenly yanked down
again instead, and a woman behind the scenes screamed--oh,
horridly, and a man came rushing out in front of the curtain waving
his arms and trying to tell everybody something, but everybody all
of a sudden was so busy screaming for himself that even God, I
think, couldn't have made you hear just what the trouble was?
It isn't a pleasant thing to have happen.
But that is almost exactly what happened to our _Rainy Week_ play
on this the fourth night of events just as I was waiting for the
curtain to rise on the most carefully staged scene which we had
prepared, the scene designated as "_The Bungalow on the Rocks_."
And the woman who screamed was the May Girl. And the man who came
rushing back to try and explain was Rollins. And the May Girl it
proved was screaming because she was drowning! And if it hadn't
been for the silly little Pom dog that Claude Kennilworth had been
silly enough to bring way from New York "for a week's outing at the
sea shore" just to please the extraordinarily silly girl who
occupied the studio next to his, the May Girl would have drowned!
It makes one feel almost afraid to move, somehow, or even not to
move, for that matter, afraid to be silly indeed, or even not to be
silly, lest it foil or foul in some bungling way the plot of life
which the Biggest Dramatist of All had really intended.
It was Ann Woltor who gave the only adequate explanation.
Everybody had at least pretended that night the unalterable
intention of going to bed early.
Claude Kennilworth of course having absented himself from the
breakfast table didn't know anything about the bungalow discussion.
But pique alone at the May Girl's persistent yet totally unexcited
rebuff of his patronage had retired him earlier than anyone to the
seclusion of his own room. And Rollins's unhappy propensity of
always and forever butting into other people's plans had been most
efficiently thwarted, as far as we could see, by dragging him
upstairs and slamming his nose into a brand new and very profusely
illustrated tome on the subject of "The Violet Snail."
By half past ten, Ann Woltor confessed she had found the whole
lower part of the house apparently deserted.
For the same reason, best known even yet only to herself, she was
still very anxious it appeared to get to the bungalow before any of
her house-companions should have forestalled her. The trip, I
judged, had not proved unduly hard. By the aid of a pocket
flashlight she had made the descent of the cliff without accident,
and after a single confusion where a blind trail ended in the water
discovered the jagged path that twisted along the ledge to the very
door of the bungalow. Once in the bungalow she had dallied only
long enough to search out by the aid of the flashlight the
particular object or objects which she had come for. Startled by a
little sound, the sound of a man humming a little French tune that
she hadn't heard for fifteen years, she had grabbed up her
treasure, whatever it was, and bolted precipitously for the house,
not knowing she had sprung the trap of our concealed phonograph
when she opened the door. Even once back in the safe precincts of
the house, however, she was further startled and completely upset
by running into the May Girl.
The May Girl was on the stairs, it seemed, just coming down. And
she didn't look "quite right," Ann Woltor admitted. That is, she
looked almost as though she was walking in her sleep, or a bit
dazed, a bit bewildered, and certainly, dressed as she was, just a
filmy night-gown with her warm blanket wrapper merely lashed across
her shoulders by its sleeves, her pretty feet bare, her gauzy hair
floating like an aura all around her, it certainly wasn't to be
supposed that she was just starting off on a prankish endeavor to
solve the bungalow mystery. Even her eyes looked unreal to Ann
Woltor. Even her voice, when she spoke, sounded more than a little
bit queer.
"I--I thought I heard Allan John whistle" she said. "I--I promised,
you know, that if he ever needed me I'd come."
Ann Woltor nearly collapsed. "Nonsense!" she explained. "Allan John
is in town! Don't you remember? He telephoned while we were at
supper. Mrs. Delville delivered his messages and good-byes to us."
"Why, yes, of course!" roused the May Girl, almost instantly. "How
silly!--I guess I must have been asleep! And just dreamed it!"
"Why, of course, you were asleep and just dreamed it." Ann Woltor
assured her. "You're asleep now! Get back to bed before you catch
your death of cold! Or before anybody sees you!"
Ann Woltor, on the verge of hysterics herself, quite naturally was
not at all anxious that those dazed, bewildered eyes should clear
suddenly and with inevitable questioning upon her own distinctly
drenched and most wind-blown and generally dishevelled appearance.
A single little shove of the shoulders had proved enough to herd
the May Girl back to her bed-room while she herself had escaped
undetected to her own quarters.
But the May Girl had _not_ been satisfied, it appeared, with Ann
Woltor's assurances concerning Allan John.
An hour or more later, roused once again to a still somewhat dazed
but now unalterable conviction that Allan John had whistled, and
fully equipped this time to combat whatever opposition or weather
she might meet, she crept from the house out into the storm with
the little Pom dog sniffing at her heels. Just what happened
afterwards nobody knows. Just how it happened or exactly when it
happened, nobody can even guess. Maybe it was the brilliantly
lighted bungalow my Husband had fixed for the setting of the "Bunga
low Scene" just after Ann Woltor's surreptitious visit that incited
her. Maybe to a mind already stricken with feverishness the rising
tide did suck through the bungalow rocks with a sound that faintly
suggested a rather specially agonized sort of whistle. Who can say?
The fact remains that to all intents and purposes she seemed to
have ignored the ledge that even yet, in spite of its drenching
spray, would have been perfectly safe for another half hour at
least, and plunged forth down the blind trail, off the rocks into
the water below. Resolutely she refused to cry for help. Perhaps
the shock of the cold water chilled the cry in her throat. She
grasped the slippery seaweed clinging to the rocks--moaning a
little--crying a little--the pitiful struggle setting the Pom dog
nearly crazy. How long she clung there she couldn't tell. She was
mauled and bruised by the threshing waves. Still some complex
inhibition prevented her crying out for help. Ages passed, her
bruised arms and numb fingers refused to hold the grip on the
elusive seaweed forever and she eventually let go her hold. A
receding wave took her and tossed her poor exhausted body still
struggling against another ledge of rock well out of reach from
shore. Then, for the first time, the May Girl seemed to realize
fully her peril--and she shrieked for help.
Ann Woltor, rousing sluggishly from her sleep, heard the black Pom
dog barking furiously on the beach. Reluctant at first to leave her
snug bed it must have been several minutes at least before sheer
curiosity and irritation drove her to get up and peer from the
window.
Out of that murky blackness of course not a single outline of the
little dog met her sight. Just that incessant yap-yap-yap-yap of a
tiny creature almost frenzied with excitement. But what really
smote Ann Woltor's startled vision, and for the first time, was the
flare of lights, which made the bungalow seem as if ablaze. And as
she stared aghast into that flare of light which seemed to point so
accusingly at her across the intervening waters, she either sensed
or saw the May Girl's unmistakable head and shoulders banging into
the single craggy rock that still jutted up from the depths saw an
arm reach out heard that one blood-curdling scream!
Rollins must have thought she was mad! Dragging him from his bed,
with her arms around his neck, her lips crushed to his ear,--even
then she could hardly articulate or make a sound louder than a
whisper.
Rollins fortunately did not lose his voice. Rollins bellowed.
Rushing out into the hall just as he was, pajamas, nightcap and
all, Rollins lifted his voice like a baying hound.
In a moment all hands were on deck. My Husband rushed for the
dory--George Keets with him, Paul Brenswick, Kennilworth, Rollins!
The women huddled on the beach.
"Hold on! Hold on!" we shouted into space. "Just a minute
more!--Just one minute more!"
We might just as well have shouted into a saw-dust pile.--The wind
took the words and rammed them down our throats again till we
sickened and choked!
Young Kennilworth came running. He was still in his white flannels.
He looked like a ghost.
"There's been some hitch about the oars!" he cried. "Is she still
there?"
In the flare of our lantern light I turned suddenly and stared at
him. He looked so queer. In a moment so awful, it seemed almost
incredible that any human face could have summoned so much EGO into
it. From those gay, pleasure-roaming feet, it must have come
hurtling suddenly--that expression! From those facile self-assured
finger tips that were already coaxing the secrets of line and form
from the Creator!--From that lusty, hot-blooded young heart that
was even now accumulating its "Pasts!"--From the arrogant,
brilliant young brain that knew only too well that it had a
"FUTURE!"--And even as I watched, young Kennilworth stripped the
white flannels from his body. And the pleasure. And the triumph.
And all the little pasts. And all the one big future. And he who
had come so presumptuously to us to make an infinitesimal bronze
replica of the sea--went forth very humbly from us to make a
man-sized model of sacrifice.
For an instant only as he steadied for the plunge a flash of the
old mockery crossed his face.
"Of course I'm stronger than the ocean," he called back. "But if it
shouldn't prove so--don't forget my Old Man's birthday!"
Ann Woltor fainted as his slim body struck the waves.
Hours passed--ages, aeons--before the dory reached them! Yet my
husband says that it way only minutes. By the merciful providence
of darkness we were at least spared some of the visual stages of
that struggle. Minutes or aeons--there were not even seconds to
spare, it proved by the time help actually arrived. Claude
Kennilworth had a broken arm, but was at least conscious. The May
Girl looked as though she would never be conscious again. Against
the ghastly pallor of her skin the brutal bruises loomed like
love's last offering of violets. The flexible finger-tips had
clawed themselves to pulp and blood.
The village doctor came on the wings of the wind! We telephoned Dr.
Brawne, but he was away on a business trip somewhere and could not
be located! The rest of the night went by like a brand-new battle
for life, but in the full glare of lamp-light this time! By
breakfast-time, if one can compute hours so on a morning when
nobody eats, Claude Kennilworth was almost himself again. But the
May Girl's vitality failed utterly to rally. White as the linen
that encompassed her she lay in that dreadful stupor among her
pillows. Only once she roused herself to any attempt at speech and
even then her words were almost inaudible. "Allan John," she
struggled to say. "Was trying--to find him."
"Has she had any shock before this!" puzzled the Doctor. "Any
recent calamity? Any special threat of impending illness?"
"She fainted day before yesterday," was all the information anybody
could proffer. "She is subject to fainting spells, it seems. Last
night Miss Woltor thought she looked a little bit dazed as though
with a touch of fever."
"We've got to rouse her some way," said the Doctor.
"Oh, if we could only find Allan John," cried the Bride. "Allan
John--and his whistle," she supplemented with almost shamefaced
playfulness.
My Husband and George Keets tore off to town in the little car!
They raked the streets, the hotels, the telegraph offices, the
railroad station, God knows what before they found him. But they
did find him. That's all that really matters!
It was ten o'clock at night before they all reached home again.
Allan John asked only one question as he crossed the threshold. His
forehead was puckered with perplexity.
"Is--everybody--in the world going to die?" he said.
They took him directly to the May Girl's room and put him down in a
chair just opposite her bed, with the whistle in his hands. "Spring
and Youth and the Pipes of Pan!" But such a sorry Pan! All the
youth that was left in him seemed to have been wrung out anew by
this latest horror. In the grayness of him, the hopelessness, the
pain, he might have been fifty, sixty, himself, instead of the
scant twenty-eight or thirty years that he doubtless was. A little
bit shakily he lifted the whistle to his lips.
"Not that I put a great deal of credence in it," admitted the
Doctor. "But if you say it was a sound--a signal that she had been
waiting for----"
Softly Allan John fluted the silver note.
A little shiver--a struggle, passed across the figure on the bed.
"Again!" prompted the Doctor.
Once more Allan John lifted the whistle to his lips.
The May Girl opened her eyes and struggled vainly to raise herself
on her elbow. When she saw Allan John a vague sort of astonishment
flushed across her face and an odd apologetic little laugh slipped
weakly from her lips.
"I--I came just as soon as I could, Allan John," she said, and
sinking back into her pillows began quite unexpectedly to cry. It
was the Doctor himself who sat by her side and wiped her tears
away.
Ann Woltor shared the watches with me through the rest of the
night. Allan John never left the room. Towards dawn I sent even Ann
Woltor to her sleep and Allan John and I met the new day alone. By
the time it was really light the May Girl, weak as she was, seemed
to have recovered a certain amount of talkativeness. Recognizing
thoroughly the presence and activity of both my hands and my feet,
she seemed to ignore entirely the existence of either my eyes or my
ears. Her puzzled wonderments were directed at Allan John alone.
"Allan John--Allan John," I heard her call softly.
"Yes," said Allan John.
"It's a lie," said the May Girl, "what people say about drowning,
that as you go down you remember every little teeny weeny thing
that has ever happened to you in your life! All your past, I mean!
All the dreadful--wicked things that you've ever done! Oh, it's an
awful lie!"
"Is it?" said Allan John.
"Yes, it certainly is;" attested the May Girl. "Why, I never even
remembered the day I bit my grandmother."
"N--o," shivered Allan John.
"No, indeed!" insisted the May Girl. "The only things that I
thought of were the things I had planned to do!--The--the--PLANS
that were drowning with me! One of them," she flushed suddenly,
"one of the plans I mean I didn't seem to care at all when I saw it
go down and the plan about going to Europe some time. Oh, I don't
think that suffered so terribly. But the farm. The farm I was
planning to have. The cows. The horses. The dogs. The chickens. The
rabbits. Why, Allan John, I counted seventeen rabbits!" Very softly
to herself she began to cry again.
"S--s--h. S--s--h," cautioned Allan John. "Things that have never
happened you know can't die."
"Of that," reflected the May Girl through her tears, "I am--not so
perfectly sure. Is--is it going to clear up?" she asked quite
irrelevantly.
"Oh, yes, _surely_!" rallied Allan John. He would have told her it
was Christmas I think if he had really thought that that was what
she wanted him to say. Very expeditiously instead he began to shine
up the silver whistle with the corner of his handkerchief.
With an almost amusing solemnity the May Girl lay and watched the
proceeding. Under the heavy fringe of her lashes her eyes looked
very shy. Then so gently, so childishly, that even Allan John
didn't wince till it was all over, she asked him the question that
no other person in the world probably could have asked him at that
moment, and lived.
"Allan John," she asked, "do you suppose that you will ever marry
again?"
"Oh, my God, no!" gasped Allan John.
"Men--do," mused the May Girl.
"Men do," conceded Allan John. With the sweat starting on his brow
he jumped up and strode to the window. From the window he turned
back slowly with a curious look of perplexity on his face. "Why--do
you ask--that?" he said.
"Oh, I don't know!" said the May Girl. "I was just wondering," she
sighed.
"Wondering what?" said Allan John.
"Wondering," mused the May Girl, "if you would ever want to marry me."
For a moment Allan John did not seem to understand--for a moment he
gazed aghast at the May Girl's impassive face. "Why--child," he
stammered.
"Why Honey-Dear," I intercepted wildly.
It was the strangest wooing I ever saw or dreamed of. The wooing by
a person who didn't even know she was wooing--of a person who
didn't even know he was being wooed.
"Well--all right--perhaps it doesn't matter," said the May Girl. "I
was only thinking how sad it would be--if Allan John ever did need
me for his wife and I was already married to somebody else."
When the Doctor came at noon he reported with eminent satisfaction
a decided improvement in both his patients. Claude Kennilworth,
contrary to one's natural expectations, was proving himself an
ideal patient despite his painful injury which he steadfastly
refused to acknowledge.
Even the May Girl's more subtle and mystifying complications seemed
to have cleared up most astonishingly, he felt, since his previous
visit.
"Oh, she's coming out all right," he assured us. "Fresh air, plenty
of range, freedom from all emotional concern or distress," were the
key-notes of his advice. "She's only a baby, grown woman-sized in
an all too brief eighteen years," he averred.
Words, phrases, judgments, rioted only too confusedly through my
mind that was already so inordinately perplexed with the whole
chaotic situation.
As I said "good-bye," and turned back from the front door, I was
surprised to see both my Husband and Ann Woltor standing close
beside me. The constrained expressions on their faces startled me.
"You heard what the Doctor said," I exclaimed. "You heard his exact
words--'great big overgrown baby,' he said. 'Ought to be turned out
to play in a sand-pile for at least two years more.' Just a baby,"
I protested, "And she'll be tending her own babies before the two
years are over! They are planning to marry her in September you
know to a man old enough to be her grandfather--almost. To Doctor
Brawne," I stormed!
"To whom?" gasped Ann Woltor. Her face was suddenly livid. "To
whom?"
A horrid chill went through me. "What's Doctor Brawne to you?" I
asked.
"It's time you told her," interposed my Husband, quietly.
"What is Doctor Brawne to you!" I demanded.
"Doctor Brawne? Nothing!" cried Ann Woltor. "But the girl--the girl
is my girl--my own little girl--my own big little girl."
"What!" I gasped. "What!" As though my knees had turned to straw I
sank into the nearest chair.
With the curious exultancy of a long strain finally relaxed, I saw
Ann Woltor's immobile face flame suddenly with amusement.
"Did you think I was talking just weather with your husband all
that first harrowing day and evening? In the car? In the bungalow?
Oh, no--not weather!" she exclaimed. "Not even just the 'May Girl,'
as you call her, but--everything! Your husband discovered it that
first morning in the car," she annotated hurriedly. "I dropped my
watch. It had a picture in it. A picture of May taken last year.
Dr. Brawne sent it to me."
"Yes, but Dr. Brawne?" I puzzled.
"Oh, I knew that May was to be married," she frowned. "And to a man
a good deal older than herself. Dr. Brawne wrote me that. But what
he quite neglected to mention,--" once again the frown deepened,
"was that the old man was himself. I like Dr. Brawne. He is a very
brilliant man. But I certainly do not approve of him as my
daughter's husband. There are reasons. One need not go into them
now," she acknowledged. "At least they do not specially concern his
age. My daughter would hardly be happy with a boy I think. Boys do
not usually like simplicity. It takes a mature man to appreciate
simplicity."
"Yes, but the discovery?" I fretted. "Your own discovery?--Just
when?"
"In the train of course, coming down that first night!" cried Ann
Woltor. "I thought I should go mad. I thought at every station I
would jump off. And then Rollins's bungling remark the next day
about my tooth gave me the chance, as I supposed, to get away.
Except for that awkward accident to my watch I should have gotten
away. Your husband implored me for my own sake, for everyone's
sake, to stop and consider. There was so much to consider. I had
all my proofs with me, my letters, my papers, my marriage
certificate. We went to the Bungalow. We thrashed it all out. I was
still mad to get away. I had no other wish in the world except to
get away! Your husband persuaded me that my duty was here--to watch
my girl--to get acquainted with my girl--before I even so much as
attempted meeting my other problems. I was very rattled. I left my
broken watch in the bungalow! The picture was still in it! That's
why I went back! I wasn't sure eyen then that I would disclose my
identity even to my daughter! For that reason alone I made your
husband promise that he would not betray my secret even to you. If
I decided to tell all right. But I wished no such decision forced
upon me!"
"Oh, Ann, Ann dear," I cried, "don't tell me any more, you've
suffered enough. Just Rollins's bungling alone--the impudence of
him----!"
"Rollins?--Rollins?" intercepted that pestiferous gentleman's voice
suddenly. "Do I hear my name bandied by festive voices?" In another
moment the Pest himself stood beside us.
My Husband is by no means a swearing man, but I distinctly heard
from his unwonted lips at that moment a muttered blasphemy that
would make a stevedore blush for shame.
Despite all her terrible stress and strain Ann Woltor
smiled--actually smiled.
My Husband gasped. The cause of that gasp was only too evident.
Once again we saw Rollins's ominous gaze fixed with unalterable
intent on Ann Woltor's face. What was meant to be an ingratiating
smile quickened suddenly in his eyes.
"Truly, Miss Woltor," he said, "_tell me_, why don't you get it
fixed!"
For an instant I thought Ann Woltor would scream. For an instant I
thought Ann Woltor would faint, then quicker than chain lighting,
right there before our eyes we saw her make her great decision. It
was as though her brain was glass and we could see its every
working.
"All right," said Ann Woltor, very quietly. "All right--you--Damn
fool--I _will_ tell you! I will tell everybody!"
For the first time in his life I saw Rollins stagger!
But Rollins could not remain prostrate even under such a rebuff as
this.
"Why--er--thank you--thank you very much," he rallied with his
first returning breath. "Shall I--shall I call the others?"
"By all means, call them quickly," said Ann Woltor.
"Oh, Ann!" I protested.
"I mean it," she said. Her face was strangely quiet. "The time has
come--I've made up my mind at last."
From the door of the porch we heard Rollins's piping voice.
"Mr. Brenswick! Mr. Keets! Kennilworth! Allan John!--Come on! Miss
Woltor's going to tell us a story!"
With vaguely responsive interest, the people came trooping in.
"A story?" brightened the Bride. "Oh, lovely--what is it about?"
"The story of my broken tooth," said Ann Woltor, very trenchantly,
"told by request--Mr. Rollins's request," she added.
With a single comprehensive glance at my tortured face--at my
Husband's--at Ann Woltor's, Claude Kennilworth turned sharply on
his heel and started to leave the room.
"What, don't you want to hear the story?" piped Rollins.
"No, not by a damn sight," snapped Kennilworth.
"But I want you to hear it," said Ann Woltor, still in that deadly
quiet but absolutely firm voice.
George Keets's lips were drawn suddenly to a mere thin white line.
"One has no desire to intrude, Miss Woltor," he protested.
"It is no intrusion," said Aim Woltor.
For a single hesitating moment her sombre eyes swept the waiting
group. Then, without further break or pause, she plunged into her
narrative.
"I am the May Girl's mother," she said. "I ran away from the May
Girl's father. I ran away with another man. I don't pretend to
explain it. I don't pretend to condone it. This is not a discussion
of ethics but a mere statement of history. All that I insist upon
your understanding--is that I ran away from a legalized life of
incessant fault-finding and criticism to an unlegalized life of
absolute approval and love.
"I cannot even admit, after the first big wrench, of course, that I
greatly regretted the little child I left behind. Mothers are
always supposed to regret such things I know, but I was not perhaps
a normal mother. I suffered, of course, but it was a suffering that
I could stand. I could not stand, it seems, the suffering of living
with my child's father.
"My husband followed us after a few months, not so much for
outraged love, I think, as for vindictiveness. We met in a cafe,
the three of us. My husband and my lover were both cool-blooded
men. My lover was a Quaker who had never yet lifted his hand
against any man. The two men started arguing. I came of a hot-
blooded family. I had never seen men arguing only about a woman
before. More than that I was vain. I was foolish. The biggest
portrait painter of the hour had chosen me for what he considered
would be his masterpiece. I taunted my lover and my husband with
the fact that neither of them loved me. John Stoltor struck my
husband. It was the first blow. My husband made a furious attack on
him. I tried to intervene. He struck me instead, with such damage
as you note. Enraged beyond all sanity at the sight, John Stoltor
killed him.
"Even then, so overwrought as I was, so bewildered with my mouth
all cut and bleeding, I snatched up a mirror to gauge the extent of
my ruin. John Stoltor spoke to me--the only harsh words of his
life.
"Your damage can be repaired in an hour," he said--"but
his--mine--_never_!"
"It was at that moment they took him away--almost fifteen years--it
has been. He did not have to pay the extreme penalty. There were
extenuating circumstances the judge thought. His time expires next
month. I am waiting for him. I have been waiting for fifteen years.
At least he will see that I have subjugated my vanity. I swore that
I would never mend my damage until I could help him mend his."
With a little gesture of fatigue she turned to Rollins. "This is
the story of the broken tooth," she finished, quite abruptly.
"Wasn't Allan John even listening?" I thought. With everyone else's
eyes fairly glued to Ann Woltor's arresting face, even now, at the
supreme climax of her narrative, his eyes seemed focussed far away.
Instinctively I followed his gaze. At the top of the stairs, her
arms holding tight to the banisters for support, sat the May Girl!
In the almost breathless moment that ensued, Rollins swallowed
twice only too audibly.
"All the same"--insisted Rollins hesitatingly, "all the same--I
really do think that----"
With a little cry that might have meant almost anything, the Bride
jumped up suddenly and threw her arms around Ann Woltor's neck.
Even at twilight time everybody was still discussing the problem of
the May Girl. Certainly there was plenty of problem to discuss.
The question of an innocent young girl on the very verge of her
young womanhood. The question of a practically unknown mother. The
question of a shattered unrelated man coming fresh to them from
fifteen years in prison. The question even of Dr. Brawne. Everybody
had his or her own impractical or unsatisfactory solution to
suggest. Everybody, that is, except Allan John.
Allan John as usual had nothing to say.
Upstairs, in the privacy of her own room, Ann Woltor and the May
Girl, without undue emotion, were very evidently threshing out the
problem for themselves.
Yet when they came down and joined us just before supper-time, it
was only too evident from their tired faces that they had reached
no happier conclusion than ours.
George Keets and my Husband brought the May Girl down. Claude
Kennilworth, quite in his old form, save for his splinted arm,
superintended the expedition.
"It's her being so beastly long," scolded Kennilworth, "that makes
the job so hard!"
In the depths of the big leather chair the May Girl didn't look
very long to me, but she did look astonishingly frail.
With a gesture of despair. Ann Woltor turned to her companions, as
if she had read our thoughts.
"There isn't any solution," she said.
Why all of us turned just then to Allan John I don't know, but it
became perfectly evident to everyone at that moment that Allan John
was about to speak.
"It seems quite clear to me," said Allan John simply. "It seems
quite natural to me somehow," he added, "that you should all come
home with me to my ranch in Montana. The little girl needs it--the
big outdoors--the animals--the life she craves. You need it," he
said, turning to Ann Woltor, "the peace of it, the balm of it. But
most of all John Stoltor will need it when it is time for him to
come. Far from prying eyes, safe from intrusive questionings, that
certainly will be the perfect chance for you all to plan out your
new lives together. How much it would mean to me not to have to go
back alone I need not say."
Startled at his insight, compelled by his sincerity, Ann Woltor saw
order dawn suddenly out of the chaos of her emotions.
From her frankly quivering lips a single protest wavered.
"But Allan John," she cried, "you've only known us four days."
Across Allan John's haggard face flickered the faintest possible
suggestion of a smile.
"I was a stranger--and you took me in."
With the weirdest possible sense of supernatural benediction, the
dark room flooded suddenly with light. From the window, just beyond
me, I heard my Husband's astonished exclamation:
"Look, Mary," he cried, "come quickly."
At an instant I was at his side.
Across the murky western sky the tumultuous storm-clouds had broken
suddenly into silver and gold. In a blaze of glory the setting sun
fairly streamed into our faces.
Struggling up from the depths of her chair to view it--even the May
Girl's pallid cheeks caught up their share of the radiance.
"Oh, Allan John," she laughed, "just see what you have done--you've
shined up all the world."
With a curiously significant expression on his face my Husband
leaned toward me quickly.
"Ring down the curtain, quick," he whispered. "The Play's
done--_Rainy Week_ is over."